Culture:a shared set of meanings that are lived through the
material and symbolic practices of everyday life.

Society shapes people's understandings and uses of nature at
the same time that nature shapes society.

The Colombian Exchange:Interaction between the Old World and
the New World originating with the voyages of Columbus.

Two American field crops: "maize and potatoes had a fundamental
advantage over the different sorts of grain that Old World farmers
already knew . . .

With suitable growing conditions, they produced more calories
per acre-sometimes very many more . . .

It is no exaggeration to say that the swift rise of industrial
Germany was the greatest political monument to the impact of American
food crops on Europe and on other continents as well." (Seeds
of Change)

The reliance on one or two varieties of potato in Ireland also
resulted in disaster.

Virgin soil epidemics:conditions in which the population at
risk has no natural immunity . . .

"The image of earth as a living organism and nurturing
mother had served as a cultural constraint restricting the actions
of human beings" (Death of Nature p.3)

As a female, Pacha is addressed as Mama- Pacha Mama, Mother
Earth. Pacha Mama is primarily benevolent, although she is also
capricious and easily angered.

"One does not readily slay a mother, dig into her entrails
for gold or mutilate her body, although commercial mining would
soon require that." (Death of Nature p.3)

"We owe our lives to her," Basilia told me, gesturing
out over the potato fields. "She nurses the potatoes lying
on her breast, and the potatoes nourish us."(Allen 1987 p.45)

"New images of mastery and domination functioned as cultural
sanctions for the denudation of nature. Society needed these new
images as it continued the processes of commercialism and industrialization."
(Death of Nature p.2)

"Our cosmos ceased to be viewed as an organism and became
instead a machine" (Death of Nature p.1)

"Mechanical refers to inanimate machines that lacked spontaneity,
volition, and thought; and the mechanical sciences."

"Organic: bodily organs, structures, and organization
of living beings" (Death of Nature p.xx)

As long as earth was considered to be alive and sensitive,
it could be considered a breach of human ethical behavior to carry
out destructive acts against it." (Death of Nature p.3)

"Miners offered propitiation to the deities of
the soil and subterranean world, performed ceremonial sacrifices,
and observed strict cleanliness and sexual abstinence, and fasting
before violating the sacredness of the living earth by sinking
a mine." (Death of Nature p.4)

Supay, the lord of the hills, sometimes referred to as Huari
and as the Tio, was transmogrified by the Christians as the Devil.

"The miner must believe in the Pachamama and the Tio
because of accidents that occur. Man is spiritually weak from
the point of view of accidents or propensity to accidents. Without
this belief he does not work in confidence. He is always uneasy."(June
Nash 1979 pp. 122-125)

When an accident nearly happens, they offer more liquor and
coca to the Tio with thanks for saving them . . . The Tio is
an explanation for the inexplicable, a rationale for the irrational
destiny which is forced on the miner.(June Nash 1979 pp. 162-164)

"Myth is the first attempt people make to explain the
world and their place in it." (Nash 1977 p.116)

"NASA data analysts were pouring through tons of satellite
data.They had begun to "flag" ozone measurements over
the south pole that were lower than any of NASA's computer models
had predicted.

These values simply fell outside the parameters set up by NASA's
scientists.

The computer in effect had been programmed to discount the
data . . .(evidently unaffected by the facts themselves)Hall,
Stephen S. 1992."The Hole in the Roof of the Sky" Mapping
the Next Millennium Random House, New York: 127-138

Stratospheric ozone acts as a shield to protect Earth's surface
from the sun's harmful ultraviolet radiation. Without this shield,
we would be more susceptible to skin cancer, cataracts, and impaired
immune systems.
from: NASA Facts Ozone: What is it, and why do we care about it?
http://eospso.gsfc.nasa.gov/NASA_FACTS/ozone/ozone.html

Environmental Justice
a movement reflecting a growing political consciousness, largely
among the world's poor, that their immediate environs are far
more toxic than those in wealthier neighborhoods.

Deep Ecology
Self realization: humans are part of the nonhuman worldbiospherical
egalitarianism: all members of nature deserve the same respect

Cultural ecology:
the study of the relationship between a cultural group and its
natural environment.

Cultural adaptation:
the complex strategies human groups employ to live successfully
as part of a natural system.

"Shipibo husband and wife provide food for themselves
and their children from the tropical rainforest by working one
hour per day. Few parents in modern societies procure food of
equal quality in less time."(Amazon Economics p.xxi)

External arena:
regions of the world not yet absorbed into the modern world system.

Slow world:
people, places, and regions whose participation in transnational
industry, modern telecommunications, materialistic consumption,
and international news and entertainment is limited.

Minisystem:
a society with a single cultural base and a reciprocal social
economy.

What kind of social relations would develop in this isolated
minisystem?

Both the ideology of community and belief in a "limited
good" (scarce and finite resources) constrains individualistic
selfish behavior and encourages cooperation and social cohesion
as a survival strategy.

The relative isolation and marginalization of the peasant community
from the wider global economy meant that most consumer durables
were out of reach.

Globalization
and environmental change -- Deforestation

Slide show of a camping trip in the Bolivian Rainforest. Local
guides showed me how easy it was to live off the land.

Bolivia's economy in the late seventies relied mostly on tin
for its export earnings. What products used to be made of tin?
Tin cans and toothpaste

When we switched to alternatives to tin, the Bolivian economy
collapsed in the mid 1980's.

The Coca Trade:

Formerly isolated lowland communities became connected to the
world system.

Peasant syndicates once fought for community needs such as
the construction of schools, roads, and other infrastructure,
fair prices for peasant crops. With the coca trade, their activism
turned to protecting their commercial interests in the coca crop.

Peasants who once planted a diversity of mostly food crops
for subsistence suddenly switch to growing just coca for export.
Rainforest is also cleared for coca production.

Ready access to dollars and consumer durables creates profound
changes in the social relations within these communities.

Deforestation

Growing environmental concern

Bergman, Roland 1979 Amazon Economics: The Simplicity of
Shipibo Indian Wealth Dept. of Geography at Syracuse University